In general, human eyes perceive 3D images based on the slight (parallactic) disparity of the right eye view and the left eye view by, for example: (i) anaglyph filtering; (ii) linear polarization separation; (iii) circular polarization separation; (iv) shutter glasses separation; (v) spectral separation filtering; (vi) lenticular lens separation; and parallax barrier screening. The illusion of depth can be created by providing an image as taken by a left camera in a stereo camera system to the left eye and a slightly different image as taken by a right camera in the stereo camera system to the right eye. Noises produced by each of the left and right cameras may comprise desirable noises such as film grain simulation of chemical films as well as undesirable noises such as digital noises producing noticeable visual artifacts.
A common problem with 3D image capturing is that each of the left and right cameras in the same stereo camera system may have its own distinct footprint and noise characteristics which typically do not match those of its counterpart camera. As a result, the right eye (RE) image and the left eye (LE) image of a 3D image may comprise noises of different footprints and characteristics. Noise reduction techniques may be applied to the RE and LE images; however, these techniques remove both desirable noise and undesirable noise from the RE and LE images. In addition, resultant 3D images may become too clean to be perceived as realistic.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section. Similarly, issues identified with respect to one or more approaches should not assume to have been recognized in any prior art on the basis of this section, unless otherwise indicated.